Red Riding
by teethlikedog
Summary: My, what big teeth you have. Vic/Sam


Spoilers for 1.08. Mildly AU. Slight Vic/Sam unwitting incest slash, so caveat lector.

**Red Riding**

Once upon a time there was a little boy called Sam whose daddy told him a story. The story was about a girl dressed in red, who walked into the forest one day to do something good and brave. Even though she knew there was a wolf in the forest, even though she'd been warned that the wolf was cruel and clever, she went all alone, her red clothes flashing bright between the trees. And there the wolf found her, smiled his sharp-toothed smile and would have eaten her all up, had a brave woodsman not heard her cries and come running, his shining axe in his hand, and chopped the wolf's head clean off.

The wicked wolf fell down dead, and the girl in red was saved, and they all lived happily ever after.

--

There is a moment of indecision when Sam sees Annie run off, as if there's something down that path he doesn't want to see, something remembered deep in his bones that doesn't want him to follow. But he does, follows Annie following Vic into the trees, and as he walks he feels an odd listlessness fall over him, the helpless sense that this has all happened before and will all happen again and now that he's begun he has no choice but to see this through to its conclusion, as if he is only tracing over lines that have already been drawn. The sunlight filters through the leaves in sparks and speckles, darts in his eyes and makes it difficult to see, and he thinks distractedly _where are you, daddy?_ without quite knowing why.

He sees Annie first as a glimpse of red between the branches, hears her desperately calling for back-up, sees Vic step calmly, quietly out to meet her, an expression on his face that Sam doesn't recognise or like. Lethargy immobilises him and he can only stand and watch as Vic advances, Annie backs away, and then he hits her, hard, the sound echoing sharp as a gunshot. She falls forever in slow motion and Sam thinks _this has already happened, I can't change anything, _thinks_ I couldn't save him and I can't save her_ and then she cries out and time starts moving again, and Sam finds himself running, his legs propelling him forwards to change history.

"I'm frightened," Vic tells him, and then Gene is there with his sheriff's badge, his shining axe of authority, ready to cut Sam's dad down without a thought. Sam can't let him, isn't sure how the gun finds its way up to point in Gene's face, but he can't let this happen, has to keep Vic safe, has to keep his _family _safe; it's a simple case of self-preservation. He vaguely hears Annie telling Gene that he's stressed, he's confused, but she's wrong: Sam knows exactly what he's doing, has never been so sure of anything, and _this_ is what he needs to do to get home. This is.

--

When he was very small, Sam once asked his daddy why the woodsman had to kill the wolf. "Because he was a wicked wolf," was the answer. "And he tried to eat everyone who came into the forest." Sam accepted that, because his daddy knew everything, but still he couldn't help feeling bad. What if the wolf wasn't really wicked, just lost in the deep woods, scared and angry and alone, with nobody to save him? So Sam made up his own stories, where he walked bravely into the forest and found the wolf, and showed him the way out, and nobody had to die.

"Such an imagination!" his mother said later, when he told her. "You couldn't make friends with a wolf in real life, though, they're too dangerous. Wild animals can't help it."

But Sam thought privately that if he ever met a real wolf, he'd be kind to it, and it would understand that he wanted to be its friend.

--

Everything happens somewhere. In another place, Sam never finds Vic. In another, he finds him and cuffs him without hesitation, and Vic Tyler goes to jail for his crimes. Somewhere else, Vic takes the loaded gun and shoots Sam in the head; somewhere Vic attacks him and Sam shoots, and they find him on the ground, clutching the body and crying. Somewhere very strange indeed, Vic offers Sam a partnership, the Tyler Brothers, how about it, they could make it big if Sam will just join him, and Sam says -

But that's somewhere else; here, Vic drops the empty gun, smiling with bitter resignation, and then rushes at Sam, backs him up against a tree, rough bark scraping, and says: "Why? Why can't you just let me _go_?"

"You have to stay," Sam tells him, his voice catching and tears in his eyes, and then Vic's eyes narrow, a thin smile splits his mouth and the wolf circles.

"Is this it then?" he murmurs, and one hand looses its hold on Sam's shirt, slides down to grope messily. "Is this why you're so interested in me? If I give you this, you'll let me go?" and Sam feels a sudden rush of horrified nausea, nearly retches right there, thinks _jesus, dad, no _and manages to choke out: "Vic, stop!" through numb lips, pushes him off with arms made of lead.

"What?" Vic sneers, "You're not a fairy, then?" and all he'd wanted was for him to stay, to stay with his family where he _belonged_, and oh, god, what this man's willing to do to get away... Sam shakes his head, trembling.

"Just _go_," he tells him, barely able to speak, and Vic gives him a long, appraising look and bolts.

--

When he was little, Sam wondered the woodsman couldn't just have chased the wolf off, made him go far away and promise to never return. Wouldn't that have been enough? Except now he knows it wouldn't; the wolf would always come back, would always kill again. Not because it's bad or wicked, but because a wolf is a wolf, and you can't change that: wild animals can't help it.

But Vic Tyler is no wolf, Vic Tyler is a man, and in another world, another nineteen-seventy-three the woman in the red dress wasn't Annie Cartwright. In another world, the woman in red died alone in the woods with nobody to come and save her, nobody to hear her cries but a small boy who couldn't understand what was happening. In another world, Sam's dad killed a woman in cold blood, and Sam watched, and part of him knows he'll be remembering that day forever.

--

Sam dreams, and in his dreams he is not the woodsman, or the wolf, or the little girl all in red. In his dreams Sam is an axe, shining and bloody. He is a red hooded cape, torn from the girl's shoulders by the wolf's long teeth, he is an inanimate object with no choice or purpose: unable to make anything change, and so nothing ever does.

And when he wakes (though really, he knows, he's dreaming still, this whole world a fabrication of his damaged mind), nothing ever has.


End file.
